Blake felt the sting of tears. ‘Please—’
‘I said move along!’
‘Stand down, defender’ came a voice from the other side of the portcullis.
Blake’s eyes shot to the gate where Harlan now stood. They watched each other through the latticed wood as the portcullis went up. The expression on his face spoke volumes. She knew whatever came out of his mouth next was really going to test the strength of her legs.
Harlan ducked beneath the rising portcullis. ‘I thought the physician said you were to remain in bed,’ he said when he reached her.
Blake did not want to waste time talking about the physician. ‘Do you know where she is?’
He exhaled and gestured away from the guards. When Blake did not move, he took her arm. ‘I’ve got her,’ he told Lyndal.
Only then did she trust herself to walk, knowing he would not let her fall. Lyndal followed, her footsteps controlled and even.
‘She’s in the tower,’ Harlan said when they were out of earshot of the other defenders.
Blake’s foot rolled, but he kept a firm hold of her.
‘She was caught trying to smuggle a hen into the borough,’ he added.
Blake glanced at Lyndal, whose face had turned a ghostly white.
‘Will they let her go?’ Lyndal asked.
‘She’ll stay there until she’s sentenced.’
Blake tried to breathe in, but it was as if her lungs had forgotten their one job. She pulled out of Harlan’s grip to see if that would help. It did not. When she tried to walk back to the gate, her legs folded, and her knees hit the stone.
‘Leave her,’ Lyndal said when Harlan went to move. ‘Just give her a second.’
Blake pressed her fingers into the icy stone as she waited for the body tingles to stop. She tried not to be sick. Harlan rested his hands on his hips and stared at the road.
No one moved or spoke for the longest time.
Once Blake had a handle on her queasiness, she sat back on her heels. ‘The sentence for livestock theft is hanging.’ She closed her eyes as nausea rolled over her once more.
‘She’s still a child,’ Lyndal said. The words came out on a laugh. ‘They won’t hang a fifteen-year-old girl over a chicken.’
Blake swallowed against the tightness in her throat. ‘Can we get her out?’
Harlan stepped up and lifted Blake to her feet. She could feel the warmth of his hands through her cloak. Tears prickled her eyes as she looked up at him, but she did not let them escape.
‘I’m working on it,’ he said, ‘but the crime happened in another borough. I have no jurisdiction there.’
She was not one to beg, but her eyes pleaded with him. ‘Your father is warden.’
‘It doesn’t matter. His loyalty is to the crown. His attachment is to the law, not me. That’s why he’s warden.’
A sob tore through Blake, one she had been holding in since her brother’s death judging by the force of it. The thought of Eda locked up in that tower with no way to communicate with the guards was too much.
Harlan pulled her to him, pressing her head to his chest. She had not thought him capable of comfort, but he continued to prove her wrong.
‘Lyndal,’ he said, ‘I need you to take your sister home.’
Blake did not want to go home. She wanted to stay where she was, with his heartbeat drowning out her thoughts. ‘Please.’ She did not even know what she was asking for.
‘Go with Lyndal,’ he said, firmer that time.
